Records: [NES NTSC] A-Type

Due to significant physics differences between the NTSC/PAL versions of the game, this thread is for NTSC only. (Playing on a European, Australian, or otherwise PAL region copy of the game? Head on over to the PAL NES scores thread.)

Play A-Type starting from any level, no scoring glitches (e.g. start with a free tetris, etc.).

In the event of a tie, the record that achieved the score earliest (measured by Level x + y lines to account for any differences in level up progression).
For max-out scores, the player may submit the earliest fraction of a line that achieves a score of 999,999. (e.g. If a player is at 991k at zero lines into Level 28 and earns a tetris, accounting for the excess score puts their max-out at Level 28 + 1.03 lines.)

If Person A were to start on Level 9, and get a max out on Level 26 with say 265 lines, that would be 3773 points per line. If Person B were to start on Level 18 and max out on Level 27 with perhaps 214 lines, that would be 4673 points per line. If Person C were to start on Level 19 and max out with 232 lines, that would be 4310 points per line.

To me, I would have to say that Person C was the most impressive. 1st
Person A was second most impressive. 2nd
Person B was impressive but not as impressive as the other two. 3rd

All that tells me is, we are going to have to bust out the calculus and develop some sliding scales.

the most efficent metric, i think, is a straigt "where did you max metric" at exactly which line of which level. Buco for instance maxed earlier than 207 if you calculate in the same fashion (although backwardsish) as we do for transition scores (which could also be tracked here as we all seem to speak of them often enough anyway).

A max even 1/100th of a line earlier than Bucos game, even if started from level 9 should be considered the winner (although as most of us play exclusivley 18 or 19 that probably wont come up... i bring it up mainly as a measure mathematically) but by using the score just before the last tetris we can derive more exact maxout placement by level and line. Bucos i think was like level 27 and 5.7lines or something. Its a mark i dont even have an interest in beating, its just too good.

I dont know if its possible to decide between games lower than max in a similar way, i have had mid and upper 800k's so early that i consider them some of my best games, although numerically they are not... I guess those just get lost maybe

So anyway... just incase people do use a non-18 start on this, the pts/line measure would seem to make their effort worse than it is and may prove a bad measure to use if several people were to show up and do that. Also... i think it might be fun to sort of "forget everything from the past for the purposes of this leaderboard (we could post all the past stuff seperatley but just reference a "start date" and have us all fill in with fresh scores now that so many people clearly kick so much ass

@Josh: You have a point. However, I think to be most straightforward with this particular leaderboard, I'd like to focus on linear metrics. If something like this were implemented in-game, I think the devs would have selected just one thing (such as fewest lines) rather than implement a complicated formula.

@Ben: I like the line recalculation. So, if someone maxes out at Level 27 + 6.x lines (regardless of total line count due to starting level differences), that would be considered the best record on this leaderboard? (The pts/line field was sort of a hold-over from the Level 19 thread, so we don't have to use it for anything if it proves unwieldy.)

Since this is a main leaderboard for the site, I think I'm going to go with all-time records to keep things unified. It does sound like a kind of neat idea, though. Maybe we can organize an event like the Carnival of Death and keep track of records over a more focused timeframe.

I assume the idea here is to keep the "starting on Level 19 competition" separate from this competition (starting on any level BUT 19?)? In that case, me previous post should be disregarded, as my point was that starting on Level 19 deserves extra credit.

I think the general case will be that a player's Level 0-18 scores beat their 19 scores, but a player is more than welcome to submit their 19 record to both threads if that earns them the best results in each.

Cheston, I'll race you to 750,000! I think when I reach that score though, I'll have to buy myself a real NES; I'm currently playing on Jnes, and I guess it's not really fair to compare authentic scores to mine. As I live in PAL country, are there any things I need to look for when getting a console? Would a PAL copy of Tetris run slower than US?

alex will likely know more about this than me but try to avoid PAL tetris, its WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY harder! For this list, non NES varieties will be considered equal. I havent played an Emulator but those who have played both authentic and emulated versions have said they play about the same, so those scores are perfectly valid.

* The reason PAL is so much harder is that the peices far quite a bit more rapidly on 19 (probably on 18 and below as well)

oh and... GOOD score!!! as a transition score i think you may have one of the highest out there with this, which is AMAZING. I think my highest transition is about a 648, so this is a remarkable transistion!

As for non-NES varieties, I guess there is technically a way to exploit it on my FC Twin, since the extra buttons function as turbos and that can probably be abused if someone really practiced at it... like, if you learned how long to press it for exactly two rotations (seems to be impractically difficult, though).

true true, but i dont think there would be a tangible advantage in a double flip button. As timing goes in tetris all the diffculty seems to be vested in left right movement, not flipping movement. In fact i think there might be a slight advantage in waiting to flip till the last second, though i dont actually know why i think that... you can see a good example of this in Supa's lvl 19 max video, he seems always to flip at the last second. Long story short, there is plenty of flipping time.